Monday, January 23, 2012

{doing a little happy dance}

With seven little quilts to finish this week, sewing-time has started to creep into the bright hours of Tilly-awake-time. As you might imagine, there's been a fair amount of unravelling of thread, a good deal of playing hide-Mummy's-ruler-under-the-sofa, and I've used the phrase "pins are SHARP, please don't stand on them" more than anyone is supposed to in one lifetime.

But along with all of that, there's been so much joy in sharing the process of sewing with Tilly. The way her eyes lit up when she first watched a bobbin being wound. Her intense love of all of the animal-print fabrics -- ooh ooh! tweet tweet! pthbthhhhhh! (That's an elephant, if you weren't sure.)

And, Tilly has discovered that quilt batting has a very similar texture to her favourite thing in the whole world: her sheepskin, GoGo.




This means that when I lay a quilt out to put the three layers together, Tilly will, without fail, toddle over, throw herself on top of it, put her thumb in her mouth and roll around in happiness. (To the future owners of these quilts: if you're wondering why the layers are so bunched up in places, wonder no more.) Certain lucky otters have also been known to go for a roll.

Once the quilts have all the layers attached, and thus, the "GoGo" batting is hidden, Tilly will instead run over and stomp on the quilt, shouting "Happy! Happy!"







I've always believed that handmade things get a bit of love stitched into their seams, which carries over to the person they are given to. So surely, surely, these children are going to feel some of that happiness that Tilly has so loving ground into their quilts with her heels?

In fact, there are so many layers of love and happiness in these quilts. One of the fabrics used was the tablecloths I made for Tilly's first birthday party. Another, the little pink birds, were the first fabric I bought after we found out Tilly was a girl. Some of Justin's favourite shirts were so beloved that he wanted to wear them again when he saw them being cut up -- despite the fact that they fit him ten years ago!



Wondering what all of these quilts are for? Read more about our quilting for community project, and see the sewing in progress, over here.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Lovely Astrid! So sweet! And how wonderful that these quilts are infused with Tilly love and happiness! I still think you are crtazy for thinking of doing 100 quilts though ;-)

Jenni said...

Wonderful that Tilly is testing out your colourful quilts, and giving them her "stamp" of approval!